In the manufacture of wheels, flat sheets of metal are rolled into a cylinder and the ends are butt welded together. The cylinder thus made is passed between rolls which deform the cylinder into a section having a dropped center and opposing tire bead seats. A web is made by a stamping operation, and it is positioned inside of the dropped center section of the rim and is welded thereto.
It is impossible in any stamping operation to produce parts that have identical dimensions and contours due to nonuniform flow of the metal. Likewise, it is not possible in rolling operations to produce parts having identical shapes; and therefore, when rolled parts and stamped parts are welded together, the resulting articles will be even more nonuniform.
It might be possible to make wheels accurately using prior art procedures by first truing the rim and the web separately in deforming operations, as for example, by pressing between accurate surfaces, and then welding the two together. It is an object of the present invention, however, to provide apparatus which will take a wheel having a nontrued rim and a nontrued web that are welded together, and make a bolting surface on the web absolutely normal to bead seats in the rim.
The above object may be achieved using separate pieces of apparatus wherein one piece trues the bead seats, and another piece trues the bolting surfaces of the web. In the most preferred embodiment of the invention, however, both truing operations are done in a single machine utilizing the bead seat truing apparatus as a support and locator for the portions of the apparatus which do the truing of the bolting surface of the web.